Leave of Absence: A Guide for Primary and Secondary Schools in Stockport

Leave of Absence

A Guide for Primary and Secondary Schools in Stockport

(Effective from September 2013)

Services for Young People

IMPORTANT NOTE

In order to assist schools in planning for the 2013-2014 school year, this guidance is being released in advance of anticipated DfE guidance on leave of absence and term time holidays which is expected in July 2013. Schools should therefore be aware that this document is likely to be updated once that guidance has been issued.

June 2013 / Services to People

Contents

  1. Introduction
  1. The Legal Position
  1. When should Leave of Absence be granted?
  1. Leave of Absence Policies and Procedures
  1. The use of Education Penalty Notices
  1. Further Information

Appendices

  1. Suggested Leave of Absence Request form
  1. Suggested letter to all parents regarding leave of absence
  1. Suggested letter when granting permission(in full or partially) for leave of absence
  1. Suggested letter to parents when refusing to grant leave of absence
  1. Suggested letter where unauthorised holiday is suspected
  1. Request to Issue an Education Penalty Notice
  1. Failure to return from Leave of Absence
  1. Unseen Child Flowchart
  1. Introduction

In March 2013 the government amended the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006 so as to abolish the right of headteachers in maintained schools and special schools not maintained by the Local Authority to authorise absence specifically for holidays in term time of up to 10 days per year in special circumstances.

Instead, holidays in term time will no longer be treated as a separate category of leave request to which special rules apply. Schools will still be able to authorise leave of absence – whether for holidays or any other reason – but only if they are satisfied that there are exceptional circumstances justifying it.

The aim of this change is to stop schoolsroutinely authorising term time holidays, and to discourage parents from regarding the taking of holidays in term time as a routine matter.

This change in the law has prompted the publication of this guidance. The guidance replaces the previous guidance for schools in Stockport on term time holidays and, as a consequence of the change in the law, extends it to cover leave of absence for reasons other than holidays in term time.

It remains the case, however, that the principle reason for which leave of absence is sought by parents, is for term time holidays. This is despite a substantial drop in the amount of time lost to holidays in Stockport over the past 4 or 5 years. Between the autumn and spring terms 2007-2008 and the equivalent terms in 2011-2012 the amount of absence caused by holidays (authorised and unauthorised) declined by 37% in primary schools and 46% in secondary schools.

This fall has coincided with a concerted effort by the Local Authority and by many schools in the borough to reduce the amount of time lost to holidays by applying the law and government guidance more consistently and working to change the expectations of parents and carers.

It is hoped that the recent change in the law taking effect from September 2013 will further cement the progress made in this area within Stockport.

This guidance sets out to:

(1)confirm the legal position regarding leave of absence;

(2)summarise the guidance in this area from the Department for Education;

(3)give guidance on leave of absence polices and provide a suggested policy and other materials for adoption by schools in Stockport;

(4)provide guidance on the use of Education Penalty Notices for combating unauthorised absence caused by term time holidays;

(5)provide materials and standard letters for use by schools, together with additional guidance on the related issue of handling circumstances where a child fails to return after a period of leave of absence.

2. The Legal Position

From 1st September 2013

The law relating to the taking of term time holidays by pupils at maintained schools and special schools not maintained by a local authority is set out in Regulation 7 of the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006, as amended by the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2013.

From 1st September 2013 the right of headteachers to authorise up to 10 days absence a year specifically for holidays if special circumstances exist will be abolished.

It appears that the aim of this change is to stop schoolsroutinely authorising term time holidays, and to discourage parents from regarding the taking of holidays in term time as a routine matter.

The new regulations provide that schools can authorise leave of absence – whether for holidays or any other reason - for such period as they determine if they are satisfied exceptional circumstances exist. In other words, holiday absence requests will no longer be treated as a separate category of leave request which have their own rules.

The regulations provide that leave of absence can only be granted if a request is made in advance by the person with whom the child resides.

3. When should Leave of Absence be granted?

From September 2013

Department for Education Guidance

The main guidance from the government on the subject of Leave of Absence can be found in the publication Advice on School Attendance (2012).

Code C: Leave of absence authorised by the school

Only exceptional circumstances warrant an authorised leave of absence. Schools should consider each request individually taking into account the circumstances, such as: the nature of the event for which leave is sought; the frequency of the request; whether the parent gave advance notice; and the pupil’s attainment, attendance and ability to catch up on missed schooling.

Please note:

This DfE guidance pre-dates the change of the law in April 2013 and at the time of writing it has not yet been updated to reflect the changes around term time holidays. It is anticipated that further guidance will be issued for September 2013.

Determining leave of absence requests

There is no definitive list of the scenarios in which Leave of Absence might be granted. However, we would suggest the following are key questions to ask:

(1)Is the reason for which leave of absence is sought sufficiently important to outweigh the negativeimpact upon the child’s education (taking into accountthe pupil’s attainment, attendance and ability to catch up on missed schooling)

(2)Is the school satisfied that theactivity for which leave of absence is sought could not reasonably have been arranged to take place during the school holidays?

(3)If the answer to (1) and (2) is yes, is the duration of the leave of absence requested reasonable or should only part of the absence be authorised? (see below)

Duration of leave of absence

We would suggest that the period of any authorised leave of absence should be kept to a minimum, and that schools should consider in some cases authorising only part of a period of absence. For example, if a parent sought three weeks leave of absence to enable the pupil to attend a funeral abroad, it might satisfy (1) and (2) but in answering (3) the school might feel that one week’s leave of absence would be reasonable but that three weeks would be excessive.

Family holidays

We would anticipate that it will be extremely rare for leave of absence for a holiday in term time to be authorised. Schools are now required to treat holiday in term time leave requests in the same way as any other leave requests and only grant them in exceptional circumstances.

No guidance has yet been published in relation to this but we would suggest that possible examples of where leave might be granted would include where a parent’s employment prevents the taking of leave in the school holidays (though it would be reasonable for the school to seek evidence in the form of an employer’s letter) or where a family needs to have a holiday as a result of a family crisis (though the school would need to be satisfied that the holiday could not wait until the school holidays).

It is clear that the lower cost of holidays in school term times, better weather at certain times of year or overlap with the start or end of term will not constitute exceptional circumstances.

Blanket policies

Schools should not operate blanket policies – for example, a policy to approve all requests for leave of absence up to a certain duration, or wherever a pupil has a certain percentage attendance. Similarly, a refusal to authorise any leave of absence requests, or to automatically refuse certain categories of request, would be unlawful.

This is because parliament has conferred a discretion upon schools, and schools are not supposed to abdicate from exercising discretion by operating a blanket policy. Such a policy may potentially be an unlawful fettering of discretion under administrative law principles.

Absence Codes

The DfE have indicated that as a consequence of the change in the law, they will be abolishing the H and G and F codes with effect from September 2013. No formal announcement or guidance about this has been issued at the time of writing.

However, the change in the law would appear to mean that where permission for Leave of Absence is granted, the C code should be used, and where it is refused but still taken the O code (unauthorised absence) should be used.

4.Leave of Absence Policies and Procedures

All schools are advised to have a clear policy on leave of absence which is easily available and regularly communicated. Such a policy should ideally form part of a wider whole school attendance policy.

A Leave of Absence Policy should include:

  • the rationale and philosophy behind the school's stance on attendance;
  • the circumstances in which leave of absence may be approved;
  • the procedure to be followed when applying for leave of absence;
  • the use of sanctions such as Education Penalty Notices (see below for further information) or removal from roll (see Appendix 7) where leave of absence take place without permission.

Leave of Absence procedures

Schools should consider whether they wish to have a standard leave of absence request form available to parents. The advantage of a form is that it may help ensure that full information is provided to schools; a possible disadvantage is that it may encourage parents to regard the process as a routine procedure, rather than a one-off request made in exceptional circumstances. Schools may therefore prefer simply to require that requests be made in writing to the headteacher.

An alternative to a written procedure is to require all requests to be made in person to the headteacher. Such a procedure may well be feasible in primary schools or smaller secondary schools and might have the advantage of highlighting the exceptional nature of such requests.

Either way, we would advise that where a request is refused, the school should confirm this in writing and if it is the school’s policy to use Education Penalty Notices where leave of absence takes place without permission, it is good practice to advise parents of this in the letter.

Where only part of a leave of absence request is authorised it is vital that the letter makes it clear what the start date of the proposed leave of absence is, and what the expected date of return is. The letter should also refer to possible sanctions (such as Education Penalty Notices) or, exceptionally, removal from the school roll, if the pupil does not return on the Expected Date of return (for further information on removal from roll, see Appendix 7).

5.The use of Education Penalty Notices

Education Penalty Notices were introduced by the government in 2003 and have been used in Stockport since 2005. Education Penalty Notices are fixed penalty fines issued by the Local Authority at the request of schools of £60 per parent (rising to £120 if unpaid within 21 days).

They are primarily used as an early stage intervention aimed at combating the onset of conventional attendance problems (ie. not those specifically related to leave of absence) and in these cases the issuing of a fine is almost always preceded by the issuing of a Formal Warning to the parent and an opportunity to avoid a fine through improved attendance over a short period of time.

However, Education Penalty Notices can also be used in the context of unauthorised leave of absence.

The difference in the two scenarios is that in the unauthorised leave of absence scenario no formal warning is issued to the parent. This is because a warning to a parent to improve attendance over a short period of time which was only sent after an unauthorised holiday had already occurred would have minimal impact as a deterrent.

Furthermore, the parent should already be aware that choosing to take leave of absence without permission will lead to unauthorised absences being recorded (and therefore the possibility of some form of sanction) and therefore no further warning should be necessary.

Within Stockport the Code of Conduct for the Issuing of Education Penalty Notices allows Education Penalty Notices to be issued without a Formal Warning where there are at least ten consecutive sessions (ie. five days) of unauthorised absence.

Unauthorised leave of absence of less than ten sessions can however lead to the issue of a Formal Warning where there are at least ten unauthorised absences (including those arising from the unauthorised leave of absence) in a three month period.

Good practice

  1. Publicity – it is good practice to regularly inform parents of the school's leave of absence policy and the fact that Education Penalty Notices may be issued where unauthorised leave of absence takes place. We would recommend that this information be provided to parents at least annually.
  1. Communication – where leave requests are refused, parents should be informed by letter. It is recommended that this letter should make reference to the use of Education Penalty Notices if unauthorised leave take place.
  1. Consistency – it is important that all parents are treated in a fair and consistent way. For example, it would be inappropriate to select some parents to receive Education Penalty Notices for unauthorised holidays whilst others in similar circumstances were not so selected. Schools should be particularly conscious of the need to ensure consistency across year groups and house or college structures.

Procedure for issuing Education Penalty Notices for unauthorised leave of absence

Schools must be reasonably certain that the unauthorised leave of absence has taken place before requesting that an Education Penalty Notice be issued and should provide Services for Young People with any available evidence. This might be a copy of the leave request form, correspondence with the parent regarding the leave, or details of a conversation between a member of staff and a parent which has been logged.

Schools must bear in mind that if a parent were to deny that a period of leave of absence had occurred and refuse to pay the fine, it might be necessary to produce such evidence or call evidence from relevant witnesses within school in a subsequent prosecution. It is therefore important to ensure that copies of correspondence are retained and all telephone conversations and meetings are properly logged.

Requests should be made on the standard Education Penalty Notice Request form and should be accompanied by a copy of the attendance register, relevant correspondence and phone call logs. A copy of the request form can be found at Appendix 6.

What can be done if unauthorised leave of absence is strongly suspected but has not been disclosed by the parent?

Sometimes schools received information indirectly which suggests that a child has been absent because of unauthorised leave of absence, for example, for a term time holiday. If this information is “second-hand” (such as from the child) or cannot be independently verified it may not seem appropriate to request that an Education Penalty Notice be issued.

At the same time it is clearly undesirable that parents who take leave of absence but who avoid requesting it, or who mislead school about the reasons for absences, should be able to avoid receiving a fine or other sanction.

For this reason, we have drafted a letter (see Appendix 7) which can be used in these circumstances in order to give the parent an opportunity to make representations about the reasons for the absences. It seems fair and reasonable to provide parents with this opportunity where the information about the unauthorised leave of absence has not come directly from them and cannot be directly evidenced by, for example, a completed leave of absence request form.

Depending upon the response, if any, to this letter consideration can then be given to requesting an Education Penalty Notice. Evidential issues will still have to be considered in every case, but the fact that the parent has now been given an opportunity to make representations prior to the Education Penalty Notice being requested will be relevant.

Schools are advised to seek advice from the Legal Liaison Officer at Services for Young People if they have any queries or concerns around evidential issues. We would advise that even where it is felt that there is not sufficient evidence to allow a Penalty Notice to be issued, schools can and should still challenge parents about the absences in question.

For example, if a parent has claimed a child is ill, but there is evidence to suggest that the family were on holiday, this should be raised with the family. By so doing, schools will demonstrate that they take the issue seriously and that they will not automatically take information from parents at face value. It is hoped that this in turn will discourage parents from believing that they can “get round” the system by misleading schools about the causes of their child’s absence.

6. Further information

For further information contact the Legal Liaison Officer at the Services for Young People, Werneth Area Office, George Lane, Bredbury, Stockport SK6 1DJ.

Telephone 0161 474 2503

Fax 0161 218 1170

Further copies of this guide and electronic copies of the forms and other materials are available on request.

Appendix 1

Suggested Leave of Absence Request form

Leave of Absence Request Form

This form should be completed and submitted to [insert details] within [four weeks] of the start of the proposed leave of absence. Separate forms should be completed for each child if more than one.

Parents and carers are reminded that Leave of Absence taken without permission may result in the issuing of fixed penalty fines by the Local Authority of up to £120 per parent per child.